Big Journalism uncorks the lamest Giuliani defense ever

Andrew Breitbart promised his new website, Big Journalism, would challenge the mainstream media paradigm and broaden our conceptions of journalism. Thus far, however, all he's challenged is our notion of just how boldly stupid his particular brand of “journalism” can be.

Take as the latest example Warner Todd Huston's Big Journalism post today defending Rudy Giuliani from accusations that he “forgot” 9-11 when he thick-headedly claimed earlier this week that the United States “had no domestic [terror] attacks under Bush.” We'll let Huston explain why this is much ado about nothing:

If this isn't a manufactured controversy, then what is? Does anyone really think that Rudy somehow forgot 9/11 happened? He was the mayor of the nation's largest city when it came under attack by terrorists, in the most destructive attack on America since Pearl Harbor in 1941. Isn't it more likely that everyone who's not an idiot, a Leftist, or a lawyer understood the context: that Rudy was marking 9/11 as the beginning of the current terror cycle? Isn't it obvious that Rudy was talking about the situation from the start of our awareness of the implacable ferocity of Islamic terror that Bush had stopped every other attack (and there were lots of them planned) afterward?

Where to begin...

Nobody thinks Giuliani forgot 9-11. Everybody knows that 9-11 is forever on the mind and lips of New York's former mayor. What made Rudy's comment so controversial was that he quite brazenly and audaciously lied. Indeed, one would have to be a brazen and audacious liar to say, with full knowledge of what 9-11 was and when it happened, that there were no domestic terrorist attacks in the U.S. during the Bush years.

One would also have to be remarkably brazen and audacious to argue with a straight face that when Giuliani said there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush years, what he was really doing was “marking 9-11 as the beginning of the current terror cycle.” First of all, that makes no sense. Secondly, even if it that somehow did make sense, it still means Giuliani was lying -- saying 9/11 was the beginning of a “terror cycle” does not magically change the date on which it occurred.

Also, Bush did not stop “every other attack” -- there were the anthrax attacks, the El Al ticket counter shooting, the UNC SUV attack, etc.

And on top of all this, Huston has the gall to call everyone who doesn't agree with his nonsensical and factually inaccurate scribblings an “idiot.”

Big Journalism, bigger failure.